1Honey, that sweet delicious stuff that just tastes so good.
2There's nothing quite like honey, is there?
3Syrup is similar in color, and it's sweet, but it tastes different.
4Someone named Linda has a question about honey.
5Let's give her a call now.
6- Hi Doug.
7- Hi Linda.
8- I have a question for you.
9How do bees make honey?
10- That is a great question.
11The fact that bees make honey is something most of us hear about,
12but it's not something most of us have actually seen for ourselves.
13So for a lot of people, including adults I talk to,
14the whole thing is kind of fuzzy,
15maybe a little confusing even.
16Something about flowers, and then they come back to a hive, and...
17well, something happens.
18It almost seems like a secret recipe.
19What is it that bees are doing in that hive?
20Figuring this out isn't easy.
21It's not like bees can tell us.
22And bees are really kind of secretive.
23They live in a hive.
24We can't just pop our heads in there and check it out.
25Plus, they've got those stingers.
26They really wouldn't be happy about that if we did.
27But there is a way to get inside a beehive and see what's going on.
28Can you guess?
29How could we find out what's going on inside a beehive?
30Well, one possibility might be to wear a bee suit where you can't get stung,
31and then use tiny lenses and cameras to look inside the hive.
32And that is one thing we can do.
33In fact, even easier than that,
34many bees are willing to live in hives constructed by people.
35So if you make clear sides, you can actually watch what they're doing.
36By creating these see-through hives,
37scientists have been able to carefully observe what bees do,
38and have unlocked the secret of how bees make all that sweet, delicious honey.
39If you watch a hive, you'll see bees coming and going.
40You might know that bees are very busy,
41flying around from flower to flower, then coming back to the hive.
42But what are they doing?
43Watch as a bee lands on a flower.
44You'll see it has a little tongue, right there, you see that?
45Here's another video where you can really see the tongue,
46this one on a bumblebee.
47Inside of every flower is a tiny pool of sugar water that's made by the plant.
48This is what's called nectar.
49It's such a tiny amount to us, it's hard to even notice.
50But on flowers like this one, called honeysuckle, you can actually taste it.
51It's nothing like honey at this point.
52It's clear, it's very runny, and only just a tiny bit sweet.
53But it turns out that bees aren't slurping it because they're thirsty.
54When they do this, the nectar goes into a special honey stomach for storage.
55Once a bee gets back to the hive,
56things start to get a little weird.
57They spit it out again, and pass it to other bees,
58who spit it out, and in turn pass it to other bees,
59and they do this a few times.
60This part might seem really gross,
61and scientists were confused by it at first.
62But by studying the bodies of bees,
63scientists were able to figure out that inside the honey stomach,
64bees have a special liquid called an enzyme that as it mixes with the nectar,
65makes it thicker and stickier, more and more like honey.
66So by passing it back and forth like that,
67bees are adding more and more enzyme to the nectar.
68This is what turns nectar into honey.
69Once they've done this enough times,
70they store the liquid honey into little containers they make out of wax.
71This is called the honeycomb.
72Why are bees doing all this?
73It's not for us.
74They make all of this honey to feed their babies.
75For that reason, it might seem mean of us to take honey away from them.
76But almost all of the honey that gets sold in stores doesn't come from wild bees.
77Instead, people raise bees on farms, just like other farm animals.
78The bees on farms make much more honey than their babies need.
79So farmers collect that extra honey and sell it to people.
80So in summary, bees make honey by collecting a sugary water, called nectar, from flowers,
81and then allowing that nectar to mix with a special substance inside one of their stomachs.
82That's all for this week's question.
83Thanks, Linda, for asking it.